Archive

BEIJING — If anyone wonders whether the Chinese government has tightened its grip on electronic communications since protests began engulfing the Arab world, Shakespeare may prove instructive.

A Beijing entrepreneur, discussing restaurant choices with his fiancée over their cellphones last week, quoted Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The second time he said the word “protest,” her phone cut off.

He spoke English, but another caller, repeating the same phrase on Monday in Chinese over a different phone, was also cut off in mid-sentence.

A host of evidence over the past several weeks shows that Chinese authorities are more Read more…

BEIJING — Chinese authorities cracked down on activists as a call circulated for people to gather in more than a dozen cities Sunday for a “Jasmine Revolution.”

The source of the call was not known, but authorities moved to halt its spread online. Searches for the word “jasmine” were blocked Saturday on China’s largest Twitter-like microblog, and the website where the request first appeared said it was hit by an attack.

Activists seemed not to know what to make of the call to protest, even as they passed it on. They said they were unaware of any known group being involved in the request for citizens to gather in 13 cities and shout “We want food, we want work, we want Read more…

WESSELTON, South Africa — Police fired rubber bullets as protestors set alight tyres in a destitute South African township on Wednesday in a third day of demonstrations to demand jobs and improved services.

Riot police deployed into the streets of Wesselton, around 200 kilometres (124 miles) east of Johannesburg, to disperse protesters who also dragged the charred remains of Tuesday’s barricades back into the road.

However calm returned on the streets of the township after South African police commissioner Bheki Cele visited the area and warned residents that law enforcements officers will not tolerate any further violent protests.

“It is their constitutional right to participate in mass action without violence, if they do that then police can go home,” he told reporters.

“But it is not their right to burn tires, it is not their right to loot, it is not their right to injure and attack people. If they do that we (police) will respond accordingly. It looks for now we have agreed on that approach. I hope that approach stays that way.”

222 members of Iran’s 290-seat Parliament calling for the execution of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who remain under house arrest after being detained from attending anti-government protests in Read more…

The first signs for the governmental instability in Egypt were detected as early as two years ago, according to a new study conducted by political scientists from Hebrew University.

The study, which will be published soon by the Journal of Conflict Resolution, was conducted by Prof. Tamir Sheafer and Dr. Shaul Shenhav. The researchers measured the “democratic gap” in about 90 democratic and non-democratic countries.

“The democratic gap is the difference between the democratic aspirations of a country’s citizens and the level of democracy given to them by the state’s institutions,” explains Prof. Sheafer.

According to the study’s findings, political stability will be in danger only in the case of a “negative democratic gap”. In other words, when the citizens’ expectations for democracy are unfulfilled, there is a higher chance that the citizens will Read more…

MOSCOW (AP) — About 500 people demonstrated in a central Moscow square on Monday to demand the ouster of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his “rule of thieves.”

The rally took place peacefully, but police detained a separate group of 20 opposition activists nearby. About 60 protesters also were detained in St. Petersburg, one of a number of other cities where demonstrations were held.

Prominent opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was arrested and jailed for 15 days following a similar demonstration a month ago, kept up his assault on Russia’s longtime leader as he addressed the protesters on Moscow’s Triumph Square.

He compared Putin to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, who is facing mass unrest after 30 years in power.

Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has warned the country’s royal family to step down and flee before a military coup or a popular uprising overthrows the kingdom.

In a letter published by Wagze news agency on Tuesday, the Cairo-based prince warned Saudi Arabia’s ruling family of a fate similar to that of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein and the ousted Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, calling on them to escape before people “cut off our heads in streets.”

He warned that the Saudi royal family is no longer able to “impose” itself on people, arguing that deviations in carrying out the religious concepts that make up the basis of the Saudi government “have gotten out of our hands,” so that the opposition views our acts as “interfering in people’s private life and restricting their liberties.”